Leaders from Delaware, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties spoke about their decision to join Philadelphia’s legal fight to have the slavery exhibits at the President’s House Site restored.
Last month, the U.S. National Park Service removed an exhibit on slavery at the President’s House at Sixth and Market streets at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.
It was the mansion for the presidents in the late 1700s. Both President George Washington and President John Adams lived there and conducted their business there.
Washington owned slaves and had some of them live and work in the President’s House. Adams did not own slaves.
This exhibit had been on display for more than two decades at the President’s House.
A message sent to the U.S. National Park Service was not returned.
Philadelphia filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to have the exhibit restored. This week, Delaware, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties joined Philadelphia’s action by filing a joint amicus brief.
Workers remove the displays at the President’ s House site in Independence National Historical Park Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS)
The suburban counties’ filing attested to their proximity to and shared history with Philadelphia, their connections to the nation’s founding, and the importance of maintaining honest and inclusive representation of history at nationally significant sites, particularly at America’s 250th anniversary.
“Delaware County is proud to stand with Philadelphia and with our neighboring counties to fight back against more unlawful and unconscionable federal overreach,” Delaware County Council Chair Richard Womack said. “Our history is imperfect, but it is ours, and the federal government can’t rewrite it or ignore it the moment they find it inconvenient.”
Delaware County Council Chair Richard Womack. (Courtesy of Annie Bohnenberger)
Jamila H. Winder, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, spoke on behalf of that county.
“Montgomery County is proud to stand with Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker and the leaders of the other collar counties to say no to the erasure of our history,” she said. “Instead of whitewashing our history, we should be taking action to ensure that all members of our community, no matter their backgrounds, can live the American dream. We must stand firm on our convictions that our history makes us stronger, better and braver.”
Chester County was represented by Commissioners Chair Josh Maxwell.
“We will not stand by as the federal government attempts to rewrite history by breaking the law,” he said. “Chester County was an important part of the Underground Railroad, home to the nation’s first Historically Black College and University (HBCU), and the birthplace of civil rights leaders. In filing an amicus brief, we continue our commitment to acknowledging the abhorrent legacy of slavery and working to remedy it.”
Bucks County also joined the action.
“Attempts to erase evidence of our history do not heal the stains of the past — quite the opposite, they make us weak and vulnerable to repeating our failures,” Bucks County Commissioners Chair Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia, said. “In Bucks County, with our place in American history firmly rooted, we resist temptation for self-delusion and instead confront our faults head on, resolving always to do better tomorrow than we did yesterday. Only then can we achieve our country’s founding vision of equality for all people.”
Ballard Spahr is representing these suburban counties on a pro bono basis.
Tour guide Stephen Pierce on Jan. 23 at the locations of the now-removed explanatory panels that were part of an exhibit on slavery at President’s House Site. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
“Attempts to erase and rewrite a nation’s history is a threat to democracy and cannot go unchecked,” Ballard Spahr’s Philadelphia Managing Partner Marcel Pratt, who previously served as Philadelphia City Solicitor, said. “A society that edits its history, instead of continuing to learn from it, is bound to repeat its worst mistakes.”
In an end-of-January message to constituents, state Rep. Carol Kazeem, D-159, of Chester, posted her response to the removal of the exhibit.
“The act of memory has a fundamental impact on who we are as a people and as a nation,” she wrote. “What are the stories we remember? How do we remember them? What do we choose to forget? And why?”
She told her constituents of the slavery exhibit’s removal, explaining that at the President’s House “George and Martha Washington lived with the nine people they owned as property during the years Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital.”
“I am standing before you at a time of institutional erasure at the highest level of Black contributions to American history,” Kazeem wrote. “This heinous action is part of the president’s large-scale attempt to whitewash American history and erase Black Americans and our struggles from the American story.
“How is remembering the 9 Black people enslaved by President George Washington at America’s first ‘White House anti-American?” she asked.
People make signs as demonstrators gather Tuesday to protest removal of explanatory panels. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Kazeem praised Gov. Josh Shapiro for filing his own amicus brief in support of Philadelphia’s action to have the exhibit returned.
At the time of his filing, the governor said, “Donald Trump will take any opportunity to rewrite and whitewash our history — but he picked the wrong city and the wrong Commonwealth. In Pennsylvania, we learn from our history, even when it’s painful. We don’t erase it or pretend it didn’t happen. Because when we know where we’ve been, we can chart a better course for the future. Those displays aren’t just signs — they represent our shared history, and if we want to move forward as a nation, we have to be willing to tell the full story of where we came from.”
Kazeem continued her message to her constituents.
“As a proud American, I am determined to live up to the ideals on which our nation was founded,” she said. “And that also means remembering that the Founders’ themselves failed to live up dream of liberty and equality they espoused. They didn’t see my ancestors as human, but as property. Slavery is our nation’s Original Sin.”
She said the effects of slavery are felt in current day.
“The horrific legacy of enslavement runs long and deep through our country’s history till today — limiting individual achievement and decimating communities,” Kazeem said. “Nearly 250 years after our country’s founding, that full equality is, for many, still a dream deferred.
Kazeem expanded her perspective.
“We Black Americans built this country,” she wrote. “Through our backbreaking labor. Through our foundational cultural and social contributions. Through our fight for freedom and equality that brought our nation out of barbarism to be a more equal society.”
The state representative explained the importance of remembering the nine slaves who were forced to work at the President’s House.
“We are acknowledging the founding contradiction of the United States that haunts us still,” Kazeem said. “That the man who refused to be king of the United States saw it his right to be lord and master over 317 human beings. And we remember these 9 people because they are a part of American history.”
Kazeem then named them: Moll; Oney Judge; Christoper Sheels; Austin; Giles; Paris; Hercules Posey; Richmond and Postilion Joe.
“Remember their names,” she implored. “Remember our history, so the American dream of liberty and equality can be enjoyed by all Americans.”
The Obama video
In other matters, Delaware County officials also released a statement Tuesday regarding the release of a video on President Trump’s Truth Social account that depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
“President Trump’s decision late last week to release a video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys was blatantly racist, dehumanizing, and goes against every aspect of citizenship,” the county statement said.
“The decision to post such a video is an act of extreme bigotry,” it concluded. “The choice to blame the action on a staff member is an act of cowardice. Although this is what we have come to expect from this administration, it is shocking and cannot be normalized.”
Trump has said he didn’t see the entire video before it was posted. It was taken down later the same day.